1. Technical Field
This application relates to a beverage bottling plant with beverage bottle handling machines having beverage bottle transfer stations and a method of operation thereof. This application further relates to a transfer station on container handling machines/bottle cleaning machines and similar machines with a wide infeed area comprising a plurality of transport paths located next to one another for feeding the containers into the receptacle devices of the handling machine and a conveyor that runs at a right angle or at an angle to the actual transfer direction and for the feed and removal of the containers to be handled, with a transition area to the transport paths of the infeed or discharge area and intermediate webs that separate these transport paths and to a method for the feeding of such containers.
2. Background Information
Transfer stations of this type are preferably used on container handling machines such as cleaning and/or sterilization machines, bottle cleaning machines and similar machines. On bottle cleaning machines in particular, the bottles to be cleaned are received in cells that are located next to one another and are guided through the individual handling, pre-soaking and spraying stations. For this purpose, it is necessary to insert the individual bottles, preferably lying down, into the cells, a large number of which are located next to one another.
To keep an appropriate and sufficient number of bottles constantly available in the vicinity of the transfer station, a transfer station of this type has a plurality of feed rows that are located next to one another and the number of which corresponds to the number of cells, in which feed rows, viewed in the direction of the infeed, a plurality of bottles are accumulated one behind the other. The forward row of bottles closest to the cell openings is then gripped from underneath in the base area by transfer mechanisms that are equipped with a plurality of transfer cams and are transported along a bottle guide plane that lies between the intermediate webs of such an infeed table area to the bottle cells that are being guided past it. In the cleaning machine itself, these bottle cells can be guided continuously or discontinuously to the individual handling stations, and after the completion of the handing operation, they can exit the machine in the reverse sequence and the bottles or containers can be discharged. High-capacity machines preferably operate continuously and require a correspondingly large feed of bottles. For this purpose, conveyors which for their part have a plurality of plate belts or conveyors and run next to one another are oriented at a right angle or at an angle in front of the overall transfer station.
A critical factor for the smooth transfer of the bottles is in this case the immediate transfer area between the infeed conveyors that run at right angles and the cassette-like feed tracks that run perpendicular to them. In this area, there is frequently a stationary transition plate that connects the two transport planes with each other and during the infeed and transfer process guides the bottles with the known disruptions of the smooth movement. But even with conveyors that are routed directly to the transfer or line-up position, e.g. curved conveyors, areas where the bottles or containers back up and jostle one another occur immediately upstream of the end-side areas of the intermediate webs that determine the final distances between the rows which lead to disruptions in bottles as they join the flow or fallen bottles, with the resulting noise these phenomena generate.
On such transfer stations, therefore, the prior art has suggested a movable transition plate that runs between the conveyors and is mounted so that it can be moved back and forth relative to the bottles that are standing on it transverse to the intended direction of transfer, and with a directing element in the form of a blade that comes into contact with the bottles (DE 40 10 646 A1). In this case, all of the elements that work together execute rigid, cross-shaped movements with respect to one another, which naturally under elevated noise conditions cause a displacement of the bottles as they bump into one another with an increased jostling effect, but prevent the controlled feed of the bottles into the feed path.